Investment giant seeks to add five-hour battery alongside panels and sheep at existing solar farm

Aula Energy, the renewables offshoot of Australian investment giant Macquarie, is seeking state approval to add a five-hour big battery to a fully operational solar farm in the New South Wales Central West Orana region – an addition it says should slot in to the project’s existing approved footprint.

In an application to NSW planning, Aula proposes to modify the state development consent awarded in 2021 for the 330 megawatt (MW) Wellington Solar Farm to enable the construction, operation and decommissioning of a battery energy storage system (BESS).

The proposed BESS would have a capacity of around 365 MW, and a roughly five-hour duration, the proposal says, with a total installed capacity of 1.8 gigawatt hours (GWh). It would involve additional investment in the order of $350 million.

Aula says adding storage to the Wellington solar farm, which has been in operation since October 2024, supports the national transition to renewables while addressing the “urgent need to replace retiring coal-fired power stations,” both nationally and in NSW.

“On average, the Wellington North Solar Farm produces enough clean energy to power the equivalent of approximately 142,356 Australian homes,” the planning documents say.

“Combining battery storage with solar farms helps overcome the intermittent nature of renewable energy by storing excess power when production is high and releasing it during peak demand. This ensures a steady supply of power at all times.”

Aula says the proposed modification includes a “minor adjustment” to the already Approved Development Footprint, which had included an indicative area for a future battery in its design.

“The purpose of this adjustment is to reflect the as-built layout of the solar farm and accommodate underground cabling for the proposed BESS. Importantly, this involves only a minor substitution of land approved for disturbance and would not increase the Approved Development Footprint or
change environmental impacts, relative to the Approved Project,” the documents say.

Essentially, the goal is to “slightly expand” the Approved Development Footprint to fill an existing gap between the proposed BESS and the supporting substation. And to compensate for this minor adjustment, Aula proposes to remove an equivalent area of approximately 0.2 ha that was not disturbed by solar farm construction.

“Both areas were subject to previous biodiversity survey and assessment for the solar farm, which identified that these areas contained exotic grassland vegetation which did not provide any threatened species habitat,” the plans say. “Accordingly, the two areas are considered to be ‘like for like’ with respect to biodiversity values.”

Aula took over ownership of the Wellington North Solar Farm earlier this year when it emerged as the buyer of Lightsource bp’s solar and storage portfolio in Australia – a 1 gigawatt swag of operational PV projects with options to develop up to 800 megawatts of co-located big batteries.

As well as Wellington North, the solar projects included Wellington and West Wyalong in New South Wales, Wunghnu in Victoria, and Woolooga in Queensland. Each solar project included an option to develop a co-located BESS.

The solar farms balanced out Aula’s portfolio of mostly wind and battery projects, including the Boulder Creek wind farm in central Queensland and the Carmody’s Hill wind farm in South Australia, which reached financial close in the final weeks of 2025 – and likewise has plans to add a battery.

In Western Australia, Aula has partnered with Perth-based Green Wind Renewables to develop a portfolio of large-scale wind farms totalling up to 2.4 gigawatts (GW).

The state application to add a battery to the Wellington North solar farm closes to public submissions at close of business on Wednesday October 07.

Both the Wellington North and adjacent Wellington solar farms have been used successfully to graze merino sheep.

The Wellington North project was also affected by a large grass fire during a heatwave in the 2025-26 summer. The fire took the plant offline for a day, but it was back up and running at near full capacity within 24 hours.

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